


Bright Eyed, The World Is Against Me

by auroreanrave



Series: save it with celluloid [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 2012 Summer Olympics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Olympics, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, No Strings Attached, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 22:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam finds a boyfriend, has a misunderstanding, becomes a Games Maker, gets up close and personal with a son of the nation, and not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Eyed, The World Is Against Me

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the 'save it with celluloid' series which takes characters and places them in modern scenarios. 'Bright Eyed, The World Is Against Us' takes its inspiration from the 'sports drama' genre, albeit lightly. This fic takes place during a fictionalised, GoT-infused version of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London and has Jon as a down-on-his-luck swimmer and Sam as the big-hearted Games Maker who find their paths entwined.
> 
> Actual logistics of the Olympic Games should be considered as fluid and separate from the actual ones, as my actual perspective of the Games was entirely as a TV spectator. Title comes from the lyrics for 'Lifeline' by Imogen Heap.

The aquatics centre seems to be echoing around Sam as he makes his way through the labyrinth of thickly and tastefully decorated corridors through to the main pool. The large spotlights that were dotted strategically around the pool were still ablaze despite the late hour, and Sam was looking forward to the Games Makers quarters where his comfy bed was waiting for him.

Still, he has to admit, standing in the middle of an Olympic venue was pretty amazing, even if it close to eleven at night and everyone had gone home.

Or so he thought, Sam notes, spotting a lithe figure moving in the water, long tanned arms and legs swiftly powering through the turquoise water. Sam pauses at the side of the pool, tracking the body and trying to place the figure, when the figure stops all of a sudden, head bobbing to the surface.

Oh, _now_ Sam knows the face. Jon Snow.

Jon Snow, possibly the unluckiest British swimmer in the past six years, a talented swimmer who'd always come up short against the other swimmers no matter how quick and fast he was compared to his teammates.

He was also a bit of a pin-up star (not that Sam would ever admit it) with his full lips, dark hair that despite regulations was always a bit too wavy in the water, and a tanned body that looked like a Grecian god. Not that Sam was, you know, drooling or anything.

"You alright there?" Sam blinks out of his reverie to find Jon looking at him, a smirk on his lips, and Sam blushes, recovering.

"I just, uh, I'm supposed to close up. For the night. I didn't know anyone else would be here."

Jon's smile deepens. "If you came in here for a cheeky swim, I won't tell a soul."

"No, no, I... what are you doing here anyway?"

"Working out some frustration." Jon frowns for a moment, kicking his way out of his lane and slowly moving towards Sam's side of the pool. The underwater lights make Jon look luminescent and Sam has to swallow to stop himself saying something very stupid.

"Why? You made it through to the semis." Sam hadn't seen the quarters himself - he'd been busy helping out Pyp and Grenn at the archery quarter finals - but he knew that Jon had come a solid second in the quarters, securing a place for the semis.

"I'm tired. And I think this is my last year." Jon rests his beefy forearms on the side of the pool, chin rested pointedly between them. "I just don't want a repeat of... you know."

Sam does indeed know. Athens, Jon's first try as the British wunderkind swimmer and getting blown into fifth by then-world-champion Jamie Lannister before he retired. Beijing, Jon getting into second and then suffering a killer cramp that led to current swimming wonderboy Theon Greyjoy winning the gold. Jon has had some bad luck.

"I'm sure you'll be fine. Three time's a charm and everything." Sam smiles down at Jon who remains looking pensive.

"What are you doing tonight?" Jon asks. Sam blinks, a little taken aback.

"Erm... sleeping? I don't have to be up early tomorrow, my scheduled event doesn't even start until midday. Why?"

"Wanna hang out? I'm bored, and you're the first attendant out of four to come and actually ask what I was doing." Jon looks up and smiles at Sam.

Sam's powerless to resist.

* * *

Jon's quarters in the Olympic Village are a lot more spacious than Sam's. He's got more than a bed and basics for a start. A decent TV, a great en-suite bathroom, a comfy couch as well as a queen-sized bed. Not bad at all.

Sam sits down on the couch that is straight ahead of the TV, back against the bed for some reason, which is running cycles of the day's Olympic events, and tries to ignore the fact that Jon is naked and showering only a few feet away in the bathroom.

There are no real emotional trinkets around here. No pictures of family or friends, no mementos from home, or from admirers. Just Jon's phone, mp3 player and wallet resting on a bedside table with a bottle of water.

Huw Edwards is just finishing up his round up when the door to the bathroom slides open and Jon steps out and Sam's mouth just... drops.

Sam's seen Jon in skimpier stuff, mainly his uniform of Union-Jack-themed Speedos and a cheeky magazine shoot or two, but the fact that Jon is stood before him, naked save for a white towel that is wrapped tight around his waist, kind of... short-circuits his brain a little.

Hell, it short-circuits it a _lot_.

Jon is smirking down at him and leaning down and before Sam can say anything, Jon is kissing him, tongue sliding into the cavern of Sam's mouth and sucking and making Sam go from  semi to hard in about a fifth of a second.

Sam's hands automatically go to Jon's waist, fingers skirting warm, bare skin and then Jon leans back, lips plush and red and swollen.

"Get on the bed." Jon's voice is commanding a little, which is both good because Sam's sure his upper brain functions have taken a long vacation, and bad because, well... _what?_

"I - do you - just - " Sam's words are a blabbered mess, Jon smiling a little.

"If you don't want to do this, just let me know. Okay? If you do..." Jon grins, sliding Sam's hands up his waist. "Just a bit of stress relief. I've seen the way you look at me and you're pretty cute..."

Sam nods. Jon's mouth swoops down, hungry like a predator, and Sam pushes himself backwards onto the bed in his haste, Jon pouncing a second after.

* * *

When Sam eventually makes it back to his room in the early hours of the morning, a pleasant ache in his arse and a series of marks along his neck and collarbone, Pyp blearily looks up from his pillow and exclaims, "What the bloody hell happened to you?"

* * *

They do it a few more times after that over the next week or so. Either Sam finds Jon in the pool or Jon will text Sam, and they'll go back to Jon's quarters because there's no chance of roommates sneaking in or being a potential obstacle, and Jon will fuck Sam to within an inch of his life. Jon is fierce and unabashed in bed, always ready with a brutal kiss or a sharp thrust that makes Sam see stars.

He's also funny and smart and they spend a fair amount of afterglow time debating the merits of 'Lord of the Rings' versus 'Star Wars' and watching stupid movies and sleeping together, legs and arms entangled, and _God_ , Sam _likes_ this guy. Likes him a lot.

Only once does Sam turn away from Jon's door, and that's when he finds Jon's room on the weekend. He has a couple of DVDs in one hand and an excuse about how he's never seen theIndiana Jones films, when the door opens and an attractive, young girl is stood there, drying her hair with a towel, and Jon is further in the room, wearing nothing but his tight black boxers and Sam barely chokes out a "sorry" before he's hightailing it from the room, Jon's voice echoing out down the hall. He knows this wasn't anything special, that they're not dating or anything, but still, it _hurts_.

* * *

Sam buries himself in work and studiously avoids the swimming pools. He swaps shifts with Gilly or Grenn whenever he can, and when he can't, he tries to make sure that there's no chance of him running into Jon. His phone stops working when he drops into the showers when he's cleaning them one night and that's just perfect.

One night he goes out to the pub with Grenn and Pyp and the others and drinks more than he normally does and ends up tumbling outside. It's nothing serious, but he still needs to get to A&E to get stitches, and ends up taking Talisa's later shift looking after the triple-jumpers.

When he finally gets to lunch in the canteen, his purple shirt sticking to his chest with sweat, he grabs his lunch and sits down beside Grenn and Pyp and Gilly, all set to chat, when he's hauled to his feet and into the face of Jon.

"What the _hell_ happened to you?" Jon demands, his fingers on the side of Sam's face, examining the stitches. The cut isn't bad. Really. The nurse had only needed to put about four stitches in the end and they'd be healed by the end of the week. It looks worse than it is.

"I'm fine. Just fell." Sam tries to tug himself away from Jon, but Jon's grip is strong and his face is angry and fierce and his eyes are darker than Sam's ever seen.

"Why didn't you wait before? Sansa, she - " Jon tries to speak but Sam forces his hands away from Jon's grasp and sits down. He doesn't want to talk to him right now, he's spent more than enough time dealing with assholes in his past and he _liked_ Jon, he really did, so any half-arsed excuses on his end are just not his priority right now.

Jon lets go and retreats to his own table with the rest of his teammates but he looks sad and angry and won't stop looking right at Sam.

Pyp leans over and pokes him with his baguette. "Christ, what the hell was all that about?"

Sam turns back to his soup. "Nothing."

* * *

His phone finally resurrects itself and immediately begins bleeping with text message after text message, missed call after missed call, and they're all from Jon. Worried, anxious, desperate to talk to him.

_Sam, text me back. Please._

_Please talk to me, alright?_

_Sansa's my sister._

And _of course_. Sam vaguely remembers a piece in The Daily Mail a few years ago, profiling Jon and his family and they'd had a big family portrait, Jon in the back with an arm around his mother and - and Sam remember seeing a girl there, oldest girl there, with red hair loose about her shoulders and sparkly teeth braces, but that was years ago and -

Oh, _bollocks_.

Sam sags down onto his bed and just... breathes, because there's nothing more he can do, and the fact that he's given up someone he liked, someone that even without the sex he would have liked Jon a lot. He would have liked him as a friend.

Sam sighs, curling up onto his bed, and just tries to sleep.

* * *

The first Sam hears of the news, he's busy prepping the water bottles for the heptathlon event, when Gilly hurries up to him, her blonde hair sneaking free of her ponytail, and tells him, "Jon Snow's gone missing!"

Sam gulps, blinking back all traces of emotion. "Oh? Are they sure?"

Gilly nods. "He's not in his quarters, CCTV hasn't picked him up recently and it's like he's disappeared. Today's race day, isn't it?"

Sam hasn't been tracking Jon's progress. At all. Really. Alright, today is the 200m frestyle final and Sam knows that Jon is in there, in what might be the last Olympics race of his career if he has anything to do with it.

Only now he's gone missing, vanished off the face of the earth, and God help him, Sam cares.

"When does the race start?"

Gilly checks her watch. "An hour? If he's not there, he'll get disqualified."

"Alright. Can you cover for me? I'll have a look around see if he's around."

"I knew you two had something going on," Gilly grins, "I bloody well knew it." Sam grins and kisses her on the cheek before he hurries back to Olympic Village as quick as he can walk.

The place in a mild state of panic - more security packed around the place, a sense of worry. It hasn't trickled through the news stations yet, Sam guesses, judging by the commentary he can hear on the plasma screens.

Sam decides to head to his room to grab his phone, to ring Jon and see if he might actually answer -

\- when he finds Jon in his room. Sullen and still, sat on Sam's bed in his hoodie and shorts.

"What the - what the _Hell_ are you doing here?" Sam asks, closing the door behind him. He suspects Jon doesn't want this conversation to be public.

"I wanted to talk to you. And then when I woke up this morning, I just... I couldn't go through with it, I can see it all stretching out in front of me, and I know I won't beat Theon and I..." Jon trails off.

Sam moves towards him, force pulling them together like magnets, and he sits down on the bed beside Jon.

"She's my sister. I... I know what it must have looked like. But she was just borrowing my shower and I was changing and..."

Sam nods. He's not an idiot, he's put the pieces together, and he just feels stupid now.

"I know. I didn't... I didn't know. My phone kind of died until last night." Sam manages a rueful smile, not meeting Jon's face. He looks up, after a moment, and sees Jon just staring at him. So vulnerable and open that it breaks Sam's heart a little.

"So now what?" Jon asks.

"What do you mean?"

"I just... I like you, okay? A _lot_. More than anyone I've known for a long, long time, and I just... I don't know if you... I didn't sleep with you just because. I'd been... checking you out for a while. " Jon bows his head, cheeks flushing with colour, and it's all Sam can do to slide his hand into Jon's. Jon has been watching him? God, he's...

Jon looks at him, frown breaking into a smile, and leans forward, kissing Sam, and my God has Sam missed this. The kiss turns deep and hungry and Sam doesn't know whether the research about athletic performance and sexual activity is true or not, but the way this is going, they're going to find out.

After a few minutes in which Jon has sucked desperate bruises into the hollow of Sam's throat like his life depends on it, Sam pulls back. "Okay. Come on. So... are you going or not?"

Jon pauses, contemplative. Sam pushes forward, "It's absolutely your decision, one hundred percent. But I think that if you let this be your legacy, then you'll regret it. Even if you come in last, at least you'll have tried, you'll have fought. I believe in you, Jon."

"Really?" Sam can hear the little boy talking, the one who needs reassurance and hope, and he leans in and kisses Jon firmly.

"Really. Your family and I have that in common, no doubt." Sam smiles, patting Jon's thigh.

"Keep your hand down there and I won't make it to the competition." Jon growls darkly, moving to claim Sam's mouth.

* * *

Jon and Sam separate at the gate to the London Aquatics Centre, racing there and just about making it there in time. The elation that the Great Britain team feels is extremely evident by the sighs of relief and the half-furious, half-relieved way Jon's coach embraces him.

"Go. I'll see you later." Sam smiles at Jon as he's led away by the team and the coach, and God he hates that he's going to miss it, but he has responsibilities and no amount of hot swimmer boyfriend arse is going to get him in equally hot water.

That is the plan.

That is, until he finds Grenn and Pyp and Gilly all ringing him and texting him, telling him that they're covering his shifts, repaying old favours, so that he can go see Jon swim.

(Apparently the truth about the relationship between Jon and Sam has become an open secret. It's nothing, though, apparently - Gilly says she caught Dany Targaryen, a sweet girl and ceremony designer, getting proposed to by Khal Drogo, that Hawaiian weightlifter, and Pyp tells Sam that he saw Shae, the Eastern-European gymnast, sneaking out of the room of Tyrion Lannister, paralympic champion god. Sam feels both vaguely insulted and appeased.)

"Go for it." Gilly grins at him through the phone and then hangs up. Which... okay. As close to a blessing as he thinks he'll ever get.

Sam blags his way through security and finds himself standing on the edge of the main floor surrounding the pool. They're getting ready, an entire bevvy of lithe, strapping young men all stripping down to their flag-themed Speedos, and Sam can hear the wolf-whistles underneath the cheers and excited applause.

He stays to the edge, far away enough to be nearly invisible. Sam spots Jon getting ready and _wow_ , he looks _good_. And, Sam realises, that Jon's all _his_.

Jon is looking nervous, eyes going to the crowd where Sam suspects his family is. Then Jon's eyes sneak across and spot him watching from across the pool. Jon grins, relaxing, but then everyone's getting ready and Sam's heart is suddenly in his chest because it really doesn't matter to him if Jon wins or loses or whatever, but he wants this for Jon.

And then in a flurry of movement and in an explosion of sound, the starter pistol goes off and bodies fly into the water, curving like knives, and sending a shining spray around, and Sam is yelling and hollering with everyone else in the crowd.

The swimmers turn, kicking out, and the leaders of the pack start to emerge and _oh God_ , Jon is there, keeping time with Theon and another guy, and Sam is _roaring_ and he knows he looks ridiculous, but he doesn't care, no one does, and they're nearing the end now and it's all gone so fast and -

A wall of sound, cheers and shouts and screams erupt from the crowd as the names smash onto the screen, announcing the winners and Sam looks up and feels like he could burst.

_1st - SNOW, J. - GBR_

* * *

The ceremony afterwards is perfunctory but the crowd is on their feet for the national anthems and the cameras are going nineteen to the dozen, telling the same story, that of Jon Snow, the unlikely British champion, the guy nobody thought would win, and he's standing on the podium, receiving the gold from the Duchess of Cambridge with a grin.

Sam is barely keeping it together and he's so caught up in the sound of the national anthem and the cheers that he almost doesn't spot Jon's look at him, bright and happy, happier than Sam's ever seen him, and the medal on his chest is solid and firm and forever and gleams like the sun.

Jon hugs Theon and the bronze medallist and then jumps down from the podium, heading right over to Sam, right past the dozens of journalists and their cameras desperate for an interview, for a quote, and he hugs Sam tightly, laughing in his ear.

And then he straightens up and kisses Sam. Right there, in front of the hundreds of people in the stands and the thousands and millions of viewers around the world, he kisses Sam and Sam is, for a brief moment, mortified and then irreverent, kissing him right back and the centre roars with applause.

Jon keeps his hands tight on Sam's waist and murmurs something that the cameras can't quite hear but that is clear for the eyes of the world to talk about for weeks to come. Three little words, and the world is full of radiant light.

* * *

(Hours from now, Jon will sneak away from the celebrations and find Sam and they will spend the night apologising and kissing and talking and Sam will say those words back to him, sweaty and so in love, the gold medal glinting off the bedside table.

Days from now, Pyp will tell Grenn and Gilly that he knew that Sam and Jon would work things out. Jon and Sam will ignore him and watch the closing ceremony, hands enclasped and full of wonder.

Months from now, Jon will move Sam into his apartment, and Sam will meet his family. He and Sansa will share an awkward moment, but then Sansa will grin and it'll be perfect.

Years from now, at every Christmas, every celebration, every interview, their wedding, Jon and Sam will have to tell the story, and it never, _ever_ changes.)


End file.
